1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a flash discharge device including a flash discharge tube attached to a camera body, and more particularly to a flash discharge device provided with warning indicators.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a flash discharge device (hereinafter referred to as "strobe device") including a flash discharge tube (hereinafter referred to as "strobe"), a main capacitor is employed to store electrical energy and, upon demand, to transfer the energy to the strobe, and a power source is provided to charge the main capacitor. Since the level of the voltage of the power source is comparatively low (from a few volts to ten or more volts), it takes a long time to charge the main capacitor. When it is desired to take several flash pictures in succession, the time for charging the main capacitor should preferably be as short as possible. Therefore, in order to shorten the charging time, it has been the practice to use a blocking oscillator in the strobe device.
Since the output voltage of the oscillator alternates between plus and minus, a rectifier is used to select either the positive or the negative output of the oscillator to be used to charge the capacitor. This means that only half of the charging time contributes to the charging of the capacitor and the remaining half is wasted.
A further disadvantage of conventional strobe devices is that the output of the oscillator is almost consumed in charging the main capacitor and therefore an indicator lamp connected with the strobe device to indicate that the capacitor is being charged would not light up immediately after the start of charging.